DOE names new director of ORNL

By U.S. Department of Energy | June 15, 2017

U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry recently announced the appointment of Thomas Zacharia as the new Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was unanimously selected by the UT-Battelle board of governors to succeed Thom Mason as ORNL’s Director. Zacharia has accepted this position and will transition to Laboratory Director at ORNL effective July 1, 2017.

“Dr. Thomas Zacharia will be an exceptional Director for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Zacharia has proven success with academic partnerships, broad-based scientific experience, and an exceptional skill set for building relationships. During my recent tour of ORNL, he also gave me insight into his vision for the future of ORNL, one of the world’s finest scientific laboratories,” stated Secretary Perry.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee also showed support for the Department’s selection. “Tennesseans know that Oak Ridge provides thousands jobs for our state and higher family incomes. Dr. Thomas Zacharia is the right person to lead the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he has already helped steer the lab to excellence in supercomputing, science and energy research, and advanced manufacturing," stated Senator Alexander.

Zacharia’s career at ORNL dates back to 1987, where he started as a postdoctoral researcher, and has since advanced through a variety of roles that make him extremely well-versed with ORNL, its programs, and the DOE National Laboratories system. He served most recently as the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at ORNL. In this role, he provided strategic direction for the ORNL budget and research, and collaboration with the physical, energy, engineering, computational, neutron, and nuclear science fields, as well as ORNL’s leadership in global security.

Zacharia has been successful in extending ORNL’s reach as one of the world’s leading research institutions, and in broadening partnerships with the academic community across multiple disciplines. He holds two U.S. patents and is author or co-author of more than 100 publications on high-performance computing for manufacturing processes.